The best-case scenario here is that Minnesota pulled a Brendan Gibbons: they played a guy who they had to know was very likely to be booted off campus, telling no one and hoping that they could sweep it under the rug. That does not appear to be the case:

Gopher athletics knew about Reggie Lynch & his behavior from the beginning. I literally sat them down last year & brought it to their attention even further. They know there are multiple victims. They knew about this active report. They still did nothing https://t.co/7rnHrzYtFb

Honold said Friday that she told Coyle months ago that she knew of “multiple other victims” of sexual misconduct involving Lynch.

“This is a pattern,” she told Coyle and urged him to investigate further.

“But it did not really fall on open ears,” Honold said. “The only person who really responded told me, ‘Well, this sounds awfully personal, how would you even know all of this?’ And, ‘This is irrelevant because they didn’t report to police.’

University of Minnesota athletic director Mark Coyle's responses when asked about a meeting with @abbyhonold in which she said she, "literally sat them down last year & brought (Reggie Lynch's behavior) to their attention even further." pic.twitter.com/bfl4H2rRmp

“From a weight room development standpoint, the most important thing right out of the gate for our young guys when they come in is developing their lower body and developing their back,” Herbert said. “A lot of guys spend a lot of time (bench) pressing in high school. They don’t spend a lot of time pulling and they don’t spend a lot of time training their lower body. That’s where we see our biggest gains.

“Teach guys how to eat well, teach them how to hydrate properly, teach them how to train the right way, focusing on lower body and back development, and we set them up for a great result.”

One of Herbert’s biggest success stories at Arkansas, former tight end Hunter Henry, tweeted out support of the hiring on Dec. 30.

“One of the best hires in the country!” Henry, a second-round NFL Draft pick, wrote. “This guy is legit. Might have to make a trip up to Ann Arbor now.”

I'm looking forward to the inevitable war between Herbertites and Anti-Herbertites that erupts the first time anyone has a ligament injury.

I did not know this. Apparently when Kirby Smart was hired at Georgia the first guy he wanted to call was Dan Enos, but Jeff Long had created a contract that prevented him from making a move:

“Kirby called me early (Monday), asked me for permission to talk to Dan," Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema revealed. " (I) just basically said … ‘I understand if you’ve got to talk to Dan if that’s something you want to do, but he’s got a non-compete clause in the SEC. So that kind of null and voids those things from really becoming real within our conference.”

It's tough to judge Enos's ability in a vacuum since he's going up against Alabama with a shooter and only one bean, but he appears to be well-respected in the SEC.

TV Teddy has a sad. Embarrassing toolbox Ted Valentine may have finally gone too far with his on-court antics after this flatly disrespectful action in the aftermath of a call he obviously missed:

Valentine was yanked from a couple of Big Ten games this weekend, including OSU's surprising mud-stomping of MSU, and now THREATENS TO RETIRE as a result.

"I'm thinking about retiring," Valentine told The Athletic's Seth Davis. "I've had enough of people blowing up stuff. I think I've had a stellar career, and I think it's time to get ready to walk away."

At least he thinks he's making a threat. The rest of the world sick of his histrionics looks at that as a promise. Valentine might not be the worst ref in the world, but he is the most annoying. It's long past time for that dude to hit the bricks. Hopefully his Big Ten ban is permanent. Something ain't right with that man.

FWIW, Lukas Samuelsson was a Michigan commit but is now a WMU freshman... with zero games played. He's got to be a walk-on. Tremendous, tremendous screw-up on Michigan's part to let Lukas walk for another program where he wasn't going to play. Since Samuelsson dropped off Michigan's commit list more than a year prior to his enrollment at WMU this is more of a Red thing than a Mel thing.

Michigan does still have a top-ten-ish pick coming in in Bode Wilde, so it's not a crisis or anything. But the mega-D does not appear to be happening.

David DeJulius gets after it. He took on Clarkston, which features MSU-bound PG Foster Loyer, and went to work:

Very much a Walton vibe there. He's comfortable pulling up from three and the midrange and attacks downhill like Walton did early in his career. Dunno how well that aspect of his game will translate to college—Zavier Simpson was a huge scorer in HS and that went away—but the shooting and all-around dawg-ness should stick.

Overview

Minnesota is in "year zero" under boat-rowing maniac PJ Fleck and, like so many Minnesota teams before them, is trying to scrape out bowl eligibility. They need two more wins in their closing stretch of Michigan-Nebraska-Northwestern-Wisconsin, so an upset here would get them most of the way towards that—have you seen Nebraska this year folks?—and secure the Brown Jug for what would no doubt be another statewide tour, except with groupies and amphetamines. Lose and it's mostly a shrug, because year zero, people!

So that's good for them because they're probably going to lose.

One complicating factor: the weather. Current assertions have backed off the 90% chance of rain and dialed it down to 50%. MGoWeather is saying there will be an "occasional shower" and warns about "a few raindrops." Also, MLive has a detailed article on the situation as of yesterday; it asserts that even if the rain does come it will be "a few hundredths to one-tenth of an inch," which is a light drizzle I think? So probably nothing that would impact the game.

Run Offense vs Minnesota

#relevant

Michigan will attempt to maintain their level of performance from last week against an outright bad rush defense. Minnesota is 82nd in S&P+, which is five spots worse than Rutgers even after they got gashed for 7.6 YPC last week. Their most relevant previous outing was against Michigan State; LJ Scott went for 194 yards on 25 carries with Madre London chipping in 74 on 17 as MSU won while completing nine passes. (Hey! I bet we can complete nine passes!) Notably, this is the only game against a non-tomato can in which MSU's rushing offense has done anything. They're stuck at 88th in S&P+.

Maryland and Purdue also gashed the Gophers for around 6.4 YPC; outings against Iowa and Illinois were more competitive against rush offenses ranked around 70th. Michigan's month-long upswing finds them nearing legitimately good at 21st. This should be another productive outing and possibly another paving.

If it's not one major reason will be Minnesota's willingness to be aggressive. Per Seth this was their usual deployment against Iowa heavy sets.

That is an 8.5 man box; Rutgers was willing to go at Michigan with 7 or 7.5 much of the day.

But Minnesota's been doing that much of the year and they're still scuffling badly. Minnesota's status here is a bit of a surprise since they entered the year with a hyped-up NFL draft prospect at nose tackle named Steven Richardson. Richardson is in the Glasgow vein and will be a tough handle:

Iowa spent most of the day running outside zone away from this guy but that meant trying to double the 330-pound DT who’s really more like 360 pounds and Richardson would just flow down the line and stop it anyway. Michigan was able to run power (which attacks much the same spot as outside zone) all day against the good DTs of Rutgers but Kugler is going to find keeping Richardson out of the backfield hard enough; cuts to the backside are unlikely to feature nearly as much. ...

Needless to say I really hope Onwenu’s ding last week was precautionary. Kugler and Runyan versus this guy sounds like a bad day.

Seth did the recent Minnesota-Iowa game and came away with a different picture of the Minnesota defense than the stats show; that may be an artifact of an Iowa offensive line that is struggling badly.

Minnesota starts a 245 pound sophomore and a 270 pound freshman at DE, so expect Michigan tight ends to continue getting after it on the ground. Seth:

Former blue chip SDE Carter Coughlin is undersized for a 4-3 over strongside end and makes up for it by getting aggressive, for better and worse. In their passing down sets Coughlin will often drop into coverage, where he was a consistent disaster. WDE Nate Umlor is just a guy; he’s solid against the run and not much of a pass rush threat.

The Gophers' top spacebacker is out and Seth marked both safeties—also injury replacements—with cyan this week. This looks like another situation where the edges are going to be caved in with some frequency, whether it's on power or the occasional crack sweep that catches the opposition off guard. Given the prevalence that crack has featured in the last couple games, Michigan might find it profitable to bring out various zone plays and the like that rely on defensive overreaction to the threat of a crack; that split-action pitch from Purdue that they've shelved might be a winner.

For its part Michigan is coming off a paving of Rutgers unparalleled in recent history, but there are some injury question marks after Ty Isaac, Kareem Walker, and Mike Onwenu all limped or staggered off the field late in that game. If the two running backs can't go, expect a much heavier dose of Chris Evans as he picks up carries after Higdon; O'Maury Samuels also figures to get his first carries outside of garbage time. Onwenu's absence would be much bigger, figuratively and literally. Jon Runyan Jr has deputized at times this year and played fairly well, but he is not a man-planet with ballerina feet.

Michigan's moved closer to MSU philosophically as the season's gone on (ie: run a bunch more gap schemes) and won't mechanically pound the same zone plays like Iowa did; also they seem definitively better than the ground games of Minnesota's other opponents. I don't know if you can ever expect a 300 yard outing, but 200 seems in the offing at a solid 5-6 yard clip.

KEY MATCHUP: A MAN IN THE DESERT vs AN OASIS ON THE HORIZON. Please don't be a figment of our addled imagination. Please be real, with water and... coconuts? Is that a thing? Or is that just islands?

Sponsor note. Hoeg Law is the MGoBlog of law firms that will do business stuff for you: a guy with a big job at the business factory who decided to start his own small firm to focus on smaller companies: entrepreneurs, gaming outfits, blogs(!), and the like. If you need to organize, finance, or create a contract for a small company Hoeg Law is right there in Northville waiting for your call.

There is intimidation, and then there is "you lost to a cartoon gopher":

At least Alabama gives you the courtesy of just losing to a color and a number. This? This is horror, a beating served with an adorable smile on its face. This is potentially taking a beating from a cartoon rodent that only wants to serve you hot dish, and then crack the casserole over your head. Don’t lose to Minnesota when they’re wearing these helmets, is what we’re saying. The psychological damage alone could take years of therapy to undo.

Minnesota's ground and pound offense only makes this worse. Rodney Smith bounces off tackles. A lot of tackles. If he breaks your tackle and grabs a first down on carry #30 and pops up to yell "spew" you might disassociate from your body from sheer embarrassment.

Michigan has snapped the ball 88 times on first down. The Wolverines are averaging a not-completely-awful 5.3 yards per play, but of their 464 total yards gained, 211 have come on five plays. They have gained one yard or fewer 43 times. Success rate: 33 percent — 27 percent rushing and a much healthier 46 percent passing.

It gets even worse when the Wolverines generate scoring chances. Yards per play on first downs in the red zone: 1.1. They’ve gained zero or fewer yards in eight of 12 instances.

There's a lot of pointing and going THAT about Michigan's offense, which is fine in a post like Connelly's that is a stat post drawing some high-level contours.

To date I've seen little or nothing that goes any deeper about Michigan's redzone issues, if those even exist. "Redzone efficiency" clearly does not exist separate from general efficiency at the NFL level:

We went back and looked at the past five years to compare how teams did in the red zone during the first seven weeks of the season with how they played overall. Let's call this "red zone advantage." ...

The correlation of total offensive DVOA in the first seven weeks to total offensive DVOA in the final 10 weeks is .64. That makes plenty of sense: Teams that play well on offense early in the season are likely to play well on offense late in the season. The same correlation for defense is .48, a little lower but still fairly significant.

However, the correlation for "red zone advantage" is practically nil: .01, to be exact, on both offense and defense. During the past five seasons, at least, "red zone advantage" has done nothing to project how well a team will play in the red zone during the second half of the year.

College might be different if running QBs are a real advantage, and I'd buy that.

But unless you've got a magic potion that gives Wilton Speight dreads and a 4.4 40, talking about Michigan's "redzone issues" is a waste of time. The redzone offense being bad is just the stuff that makes the offense bad in general. There's nothing about Harbaugh's approach that makes Michigan inherently bad at scoring touchdowns—Michigan was 17th in S&P+'s "finishing drives" metric a year ago if you want a number—so this is just bad QB play and bad blocking, which are problems anywhere. There's no magic bullet other than getting better at footballing.

Sharks, like would-be credit card scammers at Florida, are not smooth. Florida's many suspended players might be done for if this comes to fruition:

The nine University of Florida Football players who are facing allegations of having misused school funds, could be arrested as early as the end of this week, sources have told The Read Optional.

Antonio Callaway, Jordan Smith, and one other player are likely to be arrested on charges of felony grand theft, with the possibility of further misdemeanor charges being tagged on, according to a lawyer representing one of the players. It’s anticipated that the other six players will also be arrested, but only three players have hired legal counsel thus far.

At the very least they would be suspended until those charges are resolved, a process that might last for the duration of the season. Compounding matters:

The nine University of Florida football players who have been suspended indefinitely by the school for misuse of school funds, are also under investigation for credit card fraud, by two separate police departments in the Gainesville area, relating to an additional credit card fraud allegation.

Jordan Smith, a freshman defensive end, was suspended from all team activates after a report from The Read Optional that Smith had used stolen credit card information to pay rent at an apartment complex — around $1,000 dollars. ...

The link between the misuse of funds investigation and apartment fraud investigation is now clear: Several of the players had the same stolen credit card information; the same victim.

It appears Florida's about as good at criminal offense as regular offense. McElwain's recruiting has given off a distinct whiff of desperation at times, with Florida picking up a lot of the highly-touted guys other schools back off of because of red flags. You may remember Guy Who Got Busted For Pot On An Official Visit To OSU; James Robinson signed with Florida. He was suspended against Michigan for... I mean, you can probably guess.

Pot is the most minor of all offenses, but if you're getting busted for it on a college campus while hanging out with a crew of folks who collectively can only be football players that's something else. Twice is another level of something else. I mean... Michigan's had some guys who were super into pot. But never citation-level. I imagine that among the very very bad credit card scammers are a couple guys Florida knew they probably shouldn't take but did anyway.

Florida's collected a large number of Malik McDowells because their head coach can't really recruit and felt the pressure. This bodes unwell for Michigan's strength of schedule. Also McElwain.

How much of a problem is a football coach being a dick? A serious question. The Indianapolis Star gets the story of former IU WR Coray Keel, who left Indiana after one year mostly because Kevin Wilson was a dick:

“It became kind of like a pride thing, once I started lining up, to be key players for the opposing team every week, when I would hear coaches come up to me and tell me I’m not (crap), I’m not this and that. It was Kevin Wilson and position coaches, but mostly Kevin Wilson,” Keel said. “Every day, it was a constant reminder of how much I wasn’t doing good, and how I was doing more harm as a scout-team player, not giving the team the right looks. I was the reason we were losing, the reason why we were not doing good.”

“As my time at IU extended, it got worse,” Keel said. “To the point where it made just being there uncomfortable. It made the overall experience of it, it was to the point where I didn’t want to wake up and go to practice.”

Keel says he wasn't forced out and that Wilson tried to convince him to stay when he decided to transfer. Keel transferred to a JUCO and gave up football after one more year. The Star cites several other players with similar issues.

All football coaches are dicks. At what point does it cross the line? Mark Mangino: over the line, I think everyone can agree. Mike Rosenberg thought Rich Rodriguez was over the line, partly because of Greg Frey, and now everyone's fine with Greg Frey because Harbaugh. Wilson's hiring at Ohio State was immediately after he got fired, and nobody seems to care.

I was pretty mad last night for obvious reasons, and it occurred to me that I hadn't been actually mad at a Michigan sporting thing since football ceased. Hockey's fallen into the abyss to the point where the poor damn SID for that sport is issuing game recaps like this:

Michigan's Comeback Bid Falls Short at Wisconsin

MADISON, Wis. -- The University of Michigan ice hockey team fell, 5-2, to Wisconsin on Friday night (Feb. 17) in a Big Ten Conference matchup at the Kohl Center.

Juuuust a little short. Now that their record has caught up with their play (they're 1-7-2 in their last ten games, including an 0-2-2 record against Michigan State, the worst power conference team in RPI) it's been hard to even pay attention. Even when I am at a game I come away from it with few opinions other than "they are bad but Lockwood is good." It happens in front of you and then it is gone. Hockey isn't even interestingly bad.

Michigan's big three sports have endured seasons like this before, of course, but football's so short and their 3-9 was such an anomaly that it still held some interest, as a historical artifact if nothing else. I did get used to ignoring various basketball teams because they started walk-ons at point guard and their game strategy was to hold the ball for 30 seconds and then get the one half-decent player on the team to heave up a heavily contested jumper.

Ignoring hockey (hockey!) is weird to me, but here we are. We sold our tickets to the most recent Michigan State game because 75 bucks sounded better than a punch in the gut, and when I tried to turn the game on only to find it was not televised, I was relieved. So that's where we are in 2016 with hockey: I can legitimately be surprised when a game is not televised, and I can be fine with missing the saddest has-been rivalry in sports.

------------------------

In that light, getting mad on twitter about TV Ted Valentine is actually kind of nice. Don't get me wrong: I'd rather watch a college basketball game not run by people so deranged they might end up on CNN attacking the independent judiciary. I'd rather watch a college basketball game in which Michigan does not set a Beilein-era record for free throws allowed (41!). I'd rather have guys who don't give Michigan a tech from halfway across the court for no apparent reason. I nonetheless choose fist-clenching impotent fury over the listless apathy hockey's induced.

And that is a little something after Michigan's early conference swoon looked fatal. This chart is the change in teams' efficiency margins since conference play started; Michigan is the line that flirts with becoming Indiana 2.0—remember when they beat Kansas and UNC?—before reversing:

Here's the change in B1G teams' efficiency margins since the opening of conference play. Maryland is on fire. pic.twitter.com/Las2y7cgtB

Now I have a reason to silently hope people I've never met get a mildly debilitating disease that renders them unable to referee basketball games without having much impact on the rest of their lives and suddenly realize that this has already happened. Possibly twice.

So I've got that going for me. A silver lining.

Bullets

Eh, I'm kind of fine with Wagner fouling out like that. Michigan's down one with about a minute left and Wagner tries his Mitch McGary poke. It works, but in the process of it working Wagner hits the guy in the face and fouls out. Shon Morris immediately starts bemoaning how dumb that was.

I don't know about that. Michigan only got to overtime because Wagner was successful at prying the ball loose at half court and getting a quick two points. Repeating that in overtime down one swings your victory percentage way up—at least 30-40 percent, I'd guess. It's a risk but it might be a good one.

This style matchup. Watching Michigan play Minnesota is always an interesting contrast in styles. Beilein recruits a ton of skilled shooters and has them run an intricate offense; Pitino recruits guys chiseled out of marble who have never seen a basketball and has them run wildly at the basket in case that works out.

I greatly prefer Beilein's approach for a number of reasons, with one exception: gol dang it would be nice to have a Reggie Lynch at center. Lynch was not highly recruited and in fact played his first two years at Illinois State; he was #1 in block rate both of his two years there and is #1 this year. My kingdom for a guy who can affect shots. Maybe Jon Teske will figure out which bits are his knees and which are his elbows next year.

In all other ways, Minnesota basketball looks painful.

Free throws. In addition to the ref rogering, Michigan went through a stretch last night where Derrick Walton and Duncan Robinson went 1-5 from the free throw line. Robinson is 81% and Walton 88%. There's a divide here between the kind of person who goes all MAKE YOUR FREE THROWS as if this was a moral failing deserving of a loss and persons like myself who look at an event like that as an improbable statistical event that is worth no more than a shrug and a shake of the fist at Gamblor.

Minnesota's troubles evaporated in the second half; by the end of the game they were right on their 68% season average. Michigan was at 50%, which I don't have to tell you is not what they average. That is one of the reasons they lost.

Here are Michigan's shot margins since December started: –10, –19, –9, –16, –16, –20, –35, –19. The good news, such as it is, is that Michigan managed to win two of those games. One was against Michigan State in overtime. The other was a 2-1 win against Wisconsin before two ENGs. Michigan got outshot 35-19. This is not just bad. This is astoundingly bad.

If you prefer a grizzled hockey veteran offering up the eye test, color guys at both games this weekend were clearly upset—even depressed—about what was going on in front of their eyes. On the Minnesota-centric Fox Sports North broadcast, Ben Clymer said that "this just wasn't the same Michigan team" they're used to seeing. He was probably feeling the same way I was, having just seen the season's most exciting series—Michigan-Minnesota on the big ice—reduced to a methodical execution. I've felt that way about Michigan State, of late. It is not the same when Ryan Miller is a faint memory and the present day is all pratfalls.

I didn't catch who the BTN guy was on Friday, but I think it might have been alum Sean Ritchlin. If so his extended lament about Michigan's complete lack of a defensive system bites even deeper. No matter who it was, you don't often see that kind of pointed criticism from announcers. Usually they default to talking about how young a team is, which, yep, happened a bunch on Friday.

This is the wrong age-related malady to cite. It's inescapable now: Red Berenson's in the twilight of his career and has hung on too long.

The slide has been gradual but it's also been a long time coming. The last Michigan team that felt truly elite was the 2007-08 squad that made the Frozen Four and was downed by Nickelback and Creed in the semis. The 2010-11 team that made the national title game was driven by Sean Hunwick's absurd save percentage. The semi against North Dakota saw Michigan outshot 2 to 1; it felt worse than that. It felt like being hunted.

Hunwick barely got them to the tournament the next year and they broke the streak the year after; in the five-years post Hunwick their conference record is 44-41-8. Last year's incredible pile of talent got them to the second round of the tourney, where they were once again outshot 2 to 1 by North Dakota. Michigan hasn't played an even game against the artists formerly known as Sioux in over a decade. Now they can't play an even game against anybody.

It's never been this bad; the arrow has been pointing this direction for a long time.

----------------------------------------------

Now what? I don't know. I hope there are some tough conversations that take place and there's a new coach next year. I worry that won't happen because the narrative around the program often doesn't make any sense.

If you've paid close attention over the past few years you've seen Berenson throw Andrew Copp under the bus after his NHL departure. (Copp played 77 games his rookie year.) You've heard the rumor that Red stayed on another year because Warde Manuel asked him to. Even if this is true, Berenson could have said three words—"hire Mel, bye"—and resolved this impasse.

You'd think this would be the end of the road, but since the end of the road should have come a few years ago and did not there is a chance this will continue. You see it when a coach becomes synonymous with a program and nobody can tell him it's over. Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden are the prime exemplars. Those regimes had upward blips that were just enough ammunition to say "he's still got it" amidst a steady long-term decline, and ending them was either a nasty fight (Bowden) or only triggered by something unthinkable (Paterno).

I think the hockey program is unlikely to dig out without a new coach; I think a nasty fight might be necessary despite Mel Pearson hanging around; I don't know if Manuel has the stomach for a nasty fight, especially at a program that doesn't drive the revenue bus. At some point a football coach has to go because of the financial imperatives. That is not the case in hockey.

Maybe this is just a one year thing, as they say it is, and a new era can start next year. But I've been hearing that a change is imminent for seven years now. I'm worried it won't happen, and that's the thing that sucks most of all: Red Berenson, the guy who created Michigan hockey out of whole cloth, might keep damaging his legacy by returning. Time makes beggars of us all.

Michigan’s offense was completely overmatched against the Seminoles’ dominant front-seven, and the Wolverines earned well below-average grades for team run blocking and team pass protection. All five offensive linemen, fullbacks Khalid Hill and Henry Poggi and tight ends Ian Bunting and Tyrone Wheatley all earned below-average run-blocking grades

Woooooof. It is a good thing that Drevno has a track record that allows him to deflect most of that to the previous regime, but even with that track record I can see a bunch of discontent popping up next year when he's (probably) starting a true freshman again. Why does every departing coach at Michigan have to leave a ticking timebomb on the OL? This is three straight:

Lloyd Carr's last team dug Alex Mitchell out of retirement so he could get rolled like everyone else against OSU and gave Rich Rodriguez seven scholarship OL.

Rich Rod had a recruiting class with one OL, who was medicaled after a year. The next one saw him bring in an OG who quit football a week into fall camp.

Hoke at least tried, but his 6-OL class looks like it's petering out into zero starters and the numbers after that were far from sufficient.

All the evidence you need about Hoke's OL recruiting is the projected number of Hoke-era OL who will be starters in Harbaugh year three: one.

Anyway, the defense was terrific. So hooray.

Draft in or out: mostly out. NFL decisions for 2017 Michigan opponents are rolling in. Gentlemen who are headed for the draft:

JT Barrett, Jason Cabinda, and Josey Jewell have announced returns. Michigan got good news from Mason Cole and Maurice Hurst and less good news from Jabrill Peppers; OSU is also expected to lose CB Marshon Lattimore.

Charlton was having a strong season then took his game to a new level down the stretch, grading as our No. 4 edge defender from Week 9 through the end of the season. He was strong against the run and disruptive as a pass-rusher, picking up eight sacks, 10 hits and 32 hurries on only 251 rushes, and his two-year production is among the best in the nation.

Charlton finished the season on a tear, compiling 10 sacks in his final 10 games. He has always had the raw ability, but this season, he showed more consistency and refined technique. Charlton has the ability to be an edge defender in either a 3-4 or 4-3 scheme in the NFL.

He was 26th in late December. Peppers is still 8th to McShay; PFF has him a late first-rounder. Lewis is hanging around the middle of the first round, usually.

Coordinator lockdown. Michigan is going to lose coaches on a regular basis, because Harbaugh. They've set out to lock down their coordinators, though. Don Brown got a five year, $1.5 million deal that is certainly unprecedented for a Michigan assistant coach and may be unprecedented nationwide. I don't think I've ever heard of an assistant getting a five year deal.

Soon after, Tim Drevno got a five year, $1 million deal. Drevno might leave for a head coaching job at some point, but if it's not a P5 gig he'll be taking a paycut.

Rumors that Ty Wheatley might be a candidate at WMU seem to have petered out, FWIW.

Making football more like debate. Nate Silver did things approximately as nerdy as I did in high school, and they even had similar tournament formats:

The solution that debate tournaments devised is something called power-pairing. Power-pairing just means that teams with the same record are paired off against each other, so that a team that starts off the tournament 2-0 will face off against another 2-0 team, for instance. It usually works by drawing the first two rounds of a tournament at random,1 and after that, everything is power-paired.

This turns out to be a surprisingly elegant solution. It helps to make the matchups relatively even, which not only helps students to learn more but also usually tells you more in determining the best teams. Furthermore, the pairings are somewhat self-correcting. Suppose a good team happens to randomly draw very tough opponents in its first two rounds and gets off to an 0-2 start. They’ll receive some compensation by being paired with easier opponents the rest of the way out — an 0-2 team and then a 1-2 team, and so forth. As another bonus to this system, the best teams are put through the gantlet and really earn their keep. A team that finishes its tournament undefeated or with just one loss will have beaten a lot of very good teams along the way.

They also did this at quiz bowl tournaments. Silver proposes a radical reshaping of Big Ten play in which each team gets three rivalry games, a couple early-season games scheduled by the previous year's standings, and then four "flex" matchups based on current standings. He's honed it fairly well:

You know whether you're home or away in the flex weeks.

Three rivalry weeks is enough to satisfy anyone.

The flex matchups make late season games more meaningful.

An example of the latter point:

In our simulated season, Penn State played (and defeated) Wisconsin, Nebraska and Illinois, a decent group of opponents whom they didn’t play in the actual regular season, but skipped games against mediocre Indiana, Purdue and Rutgers, whom they pointlessly faced in real life.

This site has railed against 14-team conferences and plead for dynamic scheduling since their inception. To me the uptick in meaningful games and much more meaningful result is worth disrupting the hallowed season-ending rivalry weekend, but I understand if that's a bridge too far for you. I'm in, though.

I'm trying to think of a less appreciated Tennessee assistant football coach than Mike DeBord.

Still thinking.

Still ... OK, I give up.

This is a guy named John Adams. He is a newspaper columnist engaging in such 1990s classics as "talking down to his readers" and "using points and yards per game," so he's a natural DeBord ally. Hell, he's still using 1990s offenses as benchmarks.

In fact, DeBord proved to be one of Jones' best hires. In his first season, he revived UT's running game, which averaged 223.7 yards per game, second in the SEC. This past season, the Vols averaged 36.4 points and 443.7 yards per game.

In 1997, with senior All-American Peyton Manning at quarterback and offensive guru David Cutcliffe calling the shots, the Vols averaged 34.3 points and 482.8 yards per game.

This will be news to Adams, Debord, and Baby Spice, but it's no longer 1997. Tennessee's offense finished 28th in S&P+, which is almost perfectly mediocre in a metric that adjusts for strength of schedule. There is a reason DeBord moved to Indiana and not up the P5 ladder.

"I got a 3.0 this semester," Walker said with a smile. "At Michigan. That was like 'wow." That felt good. I worked hard for that.

"(Harbaugh) hasn't seen (the report card) yet, but I told him I about a grade I got (a while back). I had to leave practice one day for a paper and I ended up getting a B+ on that. I told him about that grade. He liked it."

There are going to be a ton of early enrollees and even so the most fascinating guy to hear about and see will probably be Walker. He was brought up unprompted by various people during bowl practices as a guy to watch, and he's a talented dude.

What went down at Minnesota. The abortive boycott after ten players were suspended in the wake of a sexual assault investigation looked terrible, and looked worse after the Title IX report was released. Tracy Claeys got fired in its wake. If you're wondering what those guys were thinking, the Pioneer Press has an extensive interview with DE Gaelin Elmore:

PP: But at any point, when Coyle comes in to explain the suspensions, did anyone think, well, he’s the AD, he knows what he’s doing?

GE: No, because his answers made it seem like he had no idea. And it was like, you’re the AD, you did this; how do you not know enough? That’s when a lot of guys were like, ‘This isn’t right.’ We had no idea. (The suspensions) came out of nowhere. If someone just has a conversation with us before (the suspensions) happen, says, “You know what? This is a Title IX, EOAA investigation, it’s really out of our hands; we’re going to suspend the guys until it’s clear,” we’d have been fine. Or even when it was released to the public, at least tell the public the kids were suspended based on the investigation that has been ongoing since Sept. 2. If that’s said, (the boycott) doesn’t happen. But none of that happened, and our team felt we had no other option.

Bad decisions with low information from the team and a Dave Brandon Classic mismanagement of the public relations from the Minnesota AD. I'm a bit surprised that PJ Fleck decided to jump into that business feet-first, but then again he is crazy.

Let's patch holes in this boat that's already on the bottom. What's worse than not enforcing any of your actual rules? Making up new ones to seem virtuous.

One of the buzz words from Tuesday's NCAA recruiting seminar is: IAWP. As part of recruiting reform, the NCAA has proposed during a two-year period before a recruit's anticipated enrollment and a two-year period after the recruit's enrollment, an institution shall not employ individuals associated with a prospect (IAWP) in a non-coaching staff position.

Harbaugh's done this three times, hiring Gwen Bush, Chris Partridge, and Devin Bush Sr. All three of these people are good, and qualified for, the jobs they now have. Meanwhile half the SEC signees are getting paid. What's the point of restricting possibly dubious transactions when you are utterly incapable of enforcing the rules already on the books? Ugh. Amateurism is the worst.

When the full-cost-of-attendance stipends were approved two years ago, there was worry among some college administrators that athletes would waste the money on frivolous purchases. But Georgia running back Nick Chubb said he saves his money every month, and his teammate Jeb Blazevich said he was surprised to learn how many Bulldogs send the money home to their families as soon as they receive it.

“That blew me away,” said Blazevich, a tight end from Charlotte, N.C. “That’s the thing that got me to love this team so well, just seeing these guys’ heart and sending the stipend home. These guys are good guys, and they want to do well by their family.”

Paternalistic concerns about How The Youth Will Spend Their Money are the worst arguments in favor of the current system. If they waste it all they're no worse off than they are now.